Chapter Three #2
He knew from training that the experience of being carried up a steep slope wasn’t exactly relaxing, but his fellow volunteers did everything they could to make the journey as safe and comfortable as possible.
They talked to Mira all the way up, reassuring her she was in good hands.
He followed with Mira’s pack and his own.
Once they reached the waiting ambulance, Paramedic Hannah Gwynn assessed Mira and allowed her to sit up. She cleaned the minor cuts on Mira’s face and applied a couple of Steri-Strips. “You should consider going to the hospital and having your neck x-rayed,” Hannah advised.
“I’m feeling much better now that I’m sitting up,” Mira said. “I’d like to go home.”
Carter, who had been standing nearby, moved in. “I can take you home,” he said.
“What about my car?” Mira looked toward the drop-off.
“You’ll have to arrange for a wrecker to retrieve your car,” Jamie said. “I’ll give you some information, and you’ll need to contact your insurance company.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Jamie returned to her cruiser and Mira shifted her gaze to Carter. “If you could take me home, that would be nice.”
“Of course.”
Jamie returned and handed Mira a sheet of paper. “Here’s everything you need to know about dealing with your car. I wrote my number at the bottom. Call me if you have any questions.”
“Thanks.” Mira stared at the paper, too numb to absorb whatever was written there.
“Let me help you up.” Carter offered his hand. She hesitated, then took it. Her hand was cold, and felt fragile in his grasp. She trembled, and he wondered if this was merely the aftershock of what she had been through, or if she was still afraid.
Mira eased herself into the passenger seat of Carter’s Jeep. “I’m going to be sore tomorrow,” she said.
“Soak in a hot bath with some Epsom salts when you get home,” Carter advised.
Was this the same guy who had been flirting so hard with her yesterday? He was all serious concern today. “Did you learn that in search and rescue?” she asked.
“Nah. High school wrestling.”
An image flashed into her mind of a younger Carter in a wrestling singlet. With his earnest green eyes and dazzling smile he had probably had half the girls in school in love with him. “Where was high school?” she asked.
“Vermont. A little town called Waterbury. How about you?”
“Santa Fe. I was born and raised there. Eagle Mountain is only the second place I’ve ever lived.” Did that make her sound unsophisticated? Naive, even?
“I’ve never been to Santa Fe. But I hear it’s pretty.”
“It is. It’s in the mountains. Like this, only different.”
She fell silent, gaze focused out the window. The realization that she had come close to never seeing this beauty again was beginning to sink in.
Carter cleared his throat. “About that note you received. Or was it more than one? You said something about ‘notes,’ plural.”
So he had picked up that slip of the tongue.
“There were two notes, actually.” She shifted toward him.
He was probably wondering why a note about jaywalking would upset her so much.
“One was left on my front door and another in my car. It’s just so creepy.
Whoever wrote them knows where I live and what my car looks like.
They knew where I parked at school.” She wrapped her arms around herself, determined not to give in to fear.
He nodded. “That’s freaky. But those things aren’t hard to find out in a town this size. They could have followed you home one afternoon, or to work one morning. Have you seen anyone suspicious?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Any men giving you a hard time? Someone you turned down for a date?”
Other than you? she thought. But that wasn’t really fair. He may have come on a little strong initially, but he hadn’t been creepy or rude. “Nothing like that,” she said. “I mean, I’ve only been here three weeks.”
“And no one’s asked you out? Guys around here are usually faster than that.”
The mock outrage that accompanied this assertion surprised a laugh from her. This was the confident flirt she was used to. “Am I supposed to be flattered?”
“I’m just surprised.” He turned onto the street leading to her apartment. “So would you go out with me?”
Guess she should have seen that coming. “Now’s not a good time.”
She braced herself for the pushback. The cajoling. Maybe even scolding. Instead, he said, “That’s cool. Maybe you’ll change your mind and if you don’t, no pressure.” He flashed a grin. “I just wanted to make sure you knew I was interested.”
She wanted to frown at him. To let him know she wasn’t falling for his charm. But she didn’t have it in her. It would be like being angry at a puppy. A really cute, buff puppy, but just as harmless, surely. And she couldn’t forget how kind he had been in the aftermath of her accident.
He parked and unfastened his seat belt. “You don’t have to go in with me,” she said.
“At least let me walk you to the door.” At her hesitation, he added. “In case there are any more notes.”
Maybe it would be a good idea not to be alone if that happened. “Okay.”
He followed her up the steps to her front door. She froze a few feet away. A piece of paper—pink this time—flapped in the breeze, tacked in the middle of the door.
Carter moved past her to read the notice. “Looks like the exterminator came by,” he said.
She choked back a sob. He returned to her side and put an arm around her. “Hey, it’s okay. Let’s go inside and I’ll get you some water.”
She let him take her keys and unlock the door while she tried to pull herself together. “It must be the aftershock from the accident,” she said. “I guess I was more shook up than I thought.”
“Anyone would be.” He returned her keys, then moved to the kitchen, found a glass and half filled it with water from the tap, and returned to her side. “Sit over here and sip this,” he said. “I’ll stay until you’re feeling better.”
She sat on the sofa and he took the chair across from her and watched her carefully. Everything about him radiated concern, not threat. “I’m sorry,” she said, though she wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for.
“It’s okay,” he said.
“Thanks for bringing me home,” she said. “And for listening.”
“Is there anything else I can do to help?” he asked. “You don’t have a car now. Do you need a ride anywhere?”
“I can walk to school from here. I’ll talk to my insurance company and see what I need to do to get my car towed. I guess it’s probably totaled.”
“Yeah, now that we had to cut it up. Sorry about that.”
“I didn’t get to see much,” she said. “Bethany—your sister, right?”
He nodded.
“Bethany covered me with a blanket. I guess in case of any sparks or flying metal. It didn’t seem to take very long. The next thing I knew, people were lifting me onto a stretcher.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to the hospital for X-rays?”
“I promise I’ll go in if I feel anything unusual,” she said. “And I’ll try your recommendation for the Epsom salt soak.”
She met his gaze and caught her breath at the recognizable zing! that coursed through her. Like plugging into a current. Not what she needed—or wanted. She set the water glass aside. “I’m feeling better now.”
She thought he would leave then, but he hesitated. “You thought the notice on the door was another note, didn’t you?” he asked.
She started to lie, but she was terrible at it. Why else would she have come up with that ridiculous story about jaywalking? “Yes,” she admitted. “It really shook me, seeing it there.”
“Would you mind showing me the notes?” he asked. He shrugged. “I know it’s a long shot, but maybe I’d recognize something about them.”
She doubted that, but in his shoes, she would probably be curious, too. She looked away. Part of her wanted to confide in someone, but was Carter really the right person?
“Hey, I don’t mean to pry,” he said. “You just seem awfully upset about a jaywalking accusation. If there’s something else I can help with, I will. And if not…you don’t know me well, but I’m not a blabbermouth.”
She didn’t know him well. Maybe he was a fabulous liar.
She couldn’t trust him with this. “Don’t worry about the notes,” she said.
“But would you hand me my backpack before you go?” She was too stiff and sore to want to retrieve it herself, but she needed to check her phone for messages.
The thought that the letter writer might call or text made her stomach twist, but she pushed it aside.
“Sure.” Carter stood and retrieved the pack and walked toward her. But before he reached her, he stopped and tugged at the corner of a folded sheet of paper sticking out of a half-unzipped pocket on the pack. “Is this one of the notes?” he asked. “It looks like the same paper.”
Before she could protest, he pulled out the note and studied it.
“Carter, no!” she said, and pushed herself to a standing position, ignoring her protesting muscles.
She watched his face as he read the accusation the letter writer had fired at her: interest, shock, then confusion. He looked at her. “Who is David?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter.” She snatched the note from his hand. “You need to leave now.”
He dropped the pack and took a step back. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was out of line. I shouldn’t have read that without your permission. But now that I have, tell me about David.”
“Why do you even care?” She was still angry at him, but she was also hurting. She wanted to hurt him, too, though she knew that wouldn’t really make her feel better.
He looked at the floor, cheeks flushed. When he raised his gaze to her again, the hurt in his expression cut her. “You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “But I can’t imagine you’ve done anything in your life to warrant someone hurting you like this.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but left. She clutched the note and stared after him, the soft click of the door as it closed behind him filling the sudden silence. Only when she was sure he was gone did she begin to cry.
She wanted to believe Carter Ames was a nice guy. But she would have said the same about everyone she had met in the last three weeks. People had welcomed her to town and been eager to include her—from her colleagues at the school to the volunteers she had met at the search and rescue meeting.
But one of those people wasn’t nice at all. One of them had accused her of the worst crime of all, and every motive she could imagine for that made her more afraid.